Lies about the Green Revolution Having Saved India from Hunger Can be Very Harmful for Policy

The green revolution was essentially the sudden and destructive removal of the rich traditional bio-diversity of our farms, the achievement of many generations of farmers going back to hundreds and in some cases thousands of years. This was done to serve the interests of rich countries and their agribusiness interests by dictating that only the crop varieties which respond well to high doses of chemical fertilizers and need chemical pesticides and weedicides are grown, while the diversity of traditional seeds well suited to the country’s conditions are phased out and discarded. Scientists who tried to point out the flaws of G.R. technology were victimized badly. Those who promoted G.R. technology and welcomed the increasing pressures of rich countries were given all the awards.  The green revolution has seen alarming loss of several micro-nutrients, high fall in water table in vast areas, many cases of poisoning of people by pesticides and other agro-chemicals, as well as loss of other forms of life and spread of serious diseases, botanic holocaust in the form of loss of thousands of crop varieties, loss of invaluable traditional wisdom relating to agriculture and seeds.